Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Gen Con stuff

I spent a ton of time in the Exhibit Hall at Gen Con this year. That, combined with the normal swag I get and a few gifts from friends, resulted in a huge haul this year. Everything I got (except one small item) is pictured above. Here's the take:

1. 2 boxes of Saxon Fyrd and one box of Saxon Thegns from Wargames Factory. My friend Nick sprung for these so we can start doing some Dark Ages skirmish gaming. He ended up with a few boxes of Vikings. We're looking at a couple of rule sets to use these with, including classic Chainmail and the new Dux Bellorum rules from Osprey. I'll be doing some work in progress posts as I paint these guys.

2. A double height World of Warcraft card tin. Somebody got this and only wanted the signature cards inside. I figure I can use the tin to organize the cards I'm working with for inspiration on the blog or to keep some of the things on my desk organized.

3. A ton of bases from Gale Force 9. They had bins at their booth full of laser-cut bases of various types and sizes. You could fill a pint container for $10 or a quart container for $15. When they ran out of the quart containers, they let you fill a couple pint containers and get a free movement tray for $15. I ended up with hundreds of 20mm square bases for my saxons and some of the 1/72 scale figures I have to play Chainmail with, a bunch of 20x40mm bases for Warmaster, and some 40mm square bases and 40x80mm bases for other wargame projects. I also got a pint each of 25mm and 28mm hexes for a different project I'll be talking about soon.

4. At the end of the con, I got a big box of swag that included a scratch and dent copy of Level 7from Privateer Press. The box had a couple of sprung corners that I patched with heavy paper, but everything else was intact. I'm looking forward to getting this on the table and seeing how it plays. I heard good things about it from several people during the con.

5. The Pathfinder Player Character Folio came in my swag box. I've only got one Pathfinder character right now, but that game is currently on hiatus. Fortunately, I got an invitation to join another Pathfinder game at the con, so I'll probably get to use this fairly soon. If nothing else, it may help me keep organized as I start working with some Pathfinder stuff for other projects.

6. The swag box had a few novels, just like last year. In this case, it included Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones, City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt, and The Captive Flame by Richard Lee Byers. I've added them to the read and release stack for now. I'll see if they make it into the keep shelf.

7. Mow and Le Boomb were both in the swag box this year. The former is a card game, and the latter is a dice game that I also got last year. I'll check out Mow and most likely toss it into my small games box. Le Boomb I'll either give away or keep as a backup copy in case I lose my other one.

8. The Fight On! Foliated Folio +8 includes issues 5-8 of the magazine. I already had the compilation of the first four issues, and I was pleasantly surprised to find this one at the OSR booth. Now I just need compilations of the rest of the issues.

9. The swag box only had a few card-related things this year. I got a few starter decks for Legend of the Five Rings and a couple of Magic boosters and bonus cards. I'll use these like I have other cards in the past - mainly for inspiration for my games and the blog.

10. I got a total of 21 True Dungeon Gen Con tokens. I've got some friends that already laid claim to a couple of these. The rest I'll toss in the box with my ones from previous years or give out sometime as prizes.

11. Gen Con 2012 pilsner glass. I'll add this to the cabinet along with my other Gen Con glassware. So far, I have an oversize Ram beer mug from years ago, a small Gen Con beer mug, a Gen Con pint glass, a Gen Con double shot glass, and this. A few more years, and I'll have all the glassware I need!

12. Dice! I got an old set of Gamescience dice from Lou Zocchi himself for $2! I also picked up a couple of emotion dice from Chessex. I'll use these to replace the reaction tables in my game sessions. One of my players gave me a half dozen of the old low-impact dice from the Holmes/Gamma World days. Two of these are d20s that have been colored on half of their faces. I'm definitely putting these in with my other old-school dice that i use for play.

The rest of the dice I got are all commemorative dice: one of the Scotty's Brewhouse dice, three Gen Con 2012 dice, and 22 Gen Con 2010 dice. These all go into my big dice bag.

13. A Pathfinder button from Paizo. I didn't get a lot of buttons this year, so I won't be adding much to my gamer scale mail. I did make it to the Paizo booth to get one of their buttons this year, though.

14. A roll of 1" hex Gaming Paper. I got this to test with some Lemax water rolls as a board for playing scaled-up Trireme and Wooden Ships and Iron Men. I was hoping for a roll with white paper and dark blue or black squares, so I'm not sure if this will be visible under the vinyl. I'll report back on how it works.

15. A set of 25x50mm decorative Chaos bases from Micro Art Studio. These are cast in resin and look really nice. They would be great for bases for Chaos Knights for Warhammer. I may use them to paint some custom character figs, but otherwise I'm thinking of giving them away.

16. Four blisters of bases and base toppers from Wyrd miniatures. I won these as the prize for third place in the Wyrd speed painting competition. I plan to use them for some character models or otherwise to add to the bits box.

17. Lenny and Blessed of December blisters for Malifaux by Wyrd Miniatures. I have no idea what Malifaux is all about. I looked at a lot of the miniatures, but I don't have any idea what the game is like. I won a $10 gift certificate to the Wyrd booth in the first round of the speed painting contest and used it to cut the cost on these minis. Lenny is a big orc-like guy carrying a pig and a big log. The Blessed of December looks like a female wendigo or werewolf. I'm going to paint these for fun and possibly use them in a warband for Fanticide later.

18. My speed painting models. I got two models from Wyrd's upcoming Puppet Warsgame. Looking at their site, I got Pokey Victoria in the final round and Judge in the first. I'm going to check out this game when it is released, but for now I'm going to finish these models to add to a Fanticide band.

19. A bunch of turrets from Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals. I picked up a mix of Battletech turrets to add to some Hot Wheels cars for use in either a scaled up Car Wars or some other post-apocalyptic game. I'll do some WIP posts about this project as well.

20. A few characters to use for a zombie game. These came from Iron Wind as well and will definitely get some WIP posts, but suffice to say this is soon to be one of my favorite character groups - a giant gunslinger with a big knife, a revolver, and a HUGE sumbrero, a dwarf with a longcoat and shotgun, and another dwarf wearing a pickelhaube and carrying a flamethrower. These will probably be for an All Things Zombiegame.

21. Seven dime store plastic robots. I got these in the care package from one of my players. I'm going to repaint them and incorporate them into my cowboys and dinosaurs game.

22. A sprue of Zombie Vixens from Wargames Factory. Nick got a couple of these sprews, so he gave me one to paint. I'll do a WIP on these as well.

23. A Gen Con Volunteer shirt. I didn't get a regular Gen Con shirt this year, so this is the only shirt I got. I hate the color, but it will make a good shirt for painting and laundry day.

24. A graph paper notebook and a pair of graph paper notepads. The notepads are like post-it notes, so they'll be ideal for a project I have in mind. The notebook is gridded at six squares per inch and is probably going to quickly become one of my go-to map sketchbooks.

25. My Captain's pin. I didn't include this in the picture. It's a nice enameled pin that was given to all of the Captain level volunteers this year.

Looking back through the list, I got a ton of stuff! Most of the things I got are for various projects in the works, so expect to start seeing a lot more project posts coming soon.